


(causing an) avalanche

by scorpionGrass



Series: you can’t put a price on peace (of mind) [4]
Category: Final Fantasy VII
Genre: Bedtime Stories, Gen, Pre-Canon, Seventh Heaven (Compilation of FFVII), Slice of Life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-20
Updated: 2019-12-20
Packaged: 2021-02-18 03:15:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 686
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21870844
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scorpionGrass/pseuds/scorpionGrass
Summary: Seventh Heaven is a place to ignore the world, relax, and get drunk, and it's where Tifa and Barret make their living.But just living isn't enough.
Series: you can’t put a price on peace (of mind) [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1363234
Comments: 2
Kudos: 8





	(causing an) avalanche

Finding a new home after the fires of Nibelheim wasn’t an easy job, but as Tifa scrubs down the last of the chipped pint glasses at her bar, Seventh Heaven, located right in the heart of the Sector Seven slums in Midgar, she figures she could’ve done a lot worse.

She also could’ve done heaps better, but who’s counting?

Barret, her landlord and co-owner of Seventh Heaven, was already upstairs reading his daughter a bedtime story. It had been a busy night for a Tuesday, but with all the turmoil and changes going on topside, she figures that binging on watered-down alcohol and dancing to the decades-old tunes on the jukebox was just what the doctor ordered.

“Almost done?” Barret asks, steel-toed boots rattling their precarious staircase.

“Almost,” Tifa says, rinsing out the same glass a third time and inspecting it. They’re getting foggier and foggier by the day, but replacing them is a luxury they can’t afford. “What story did you read to Marlene tonight?”

“Sleepin’ Beauty,” he says, with some measure of disgust as he slides behind the bar with her. “Last time I read her that one, she refused to wake up ‘til someone cute kissed her.”

“I’m guessing it wasn’t you?”

“Can you believe it? Me? I’m cute! I’m hella cute!”

Tifa laughs, giving him a once-over as he dries the pint glasses with old stained rags. “I dunno, Barret, you’re pretty beefy for someone who’s supposed to be cute.” The scars across his face and his prosthetic gun-arm don’t help his case either, but he’s a good guy, and one who helped her out a lot when she reached Midgar.

Barret just gives her a look that she guesses is supposed to be puppy-dog eyes with a pout, and she laughs even harder.

Her partner-in-crime. Literally.

“So who gave her the kiss?” Tifa asks, laugh petering out into giggles.

“Biggs,” he grumbles.

“Your little girl has taste!”

“That’s the problem!” he exclaims. “She’s growing up too fast, don’t she know she’s four?”

Tifa bumps her hip against him. “Well, you know what they say about girls, we mature faster than boys!”

He wrinkles his nose. “Oh no,” he says as he stacks the last glass into the cupboard. “No, no, no. That means she’ll be chasin’ them older boys.”

“Don’t worry Barret! They won’t mess around when they hear you’re her daddy.”

Barret grins something wolfish. “Damn straight.”

He sits himself down at one of the barstools and watches Tifa finish up cleaning. She’s only got the bar left, wiping it down with a similarly stained cloth over the rough, worn-out wood. Scratches and watermarks litter the surface, but it’s her bar and their money in the till, locked three times over to ensure none of the local lockpicks can get through to it.

“So,” Tifa starts, avoiding Barret’s eyes, “when are y’all starting your… new venture?”

“Soon as we have a name to pin it on.”

“Any ideas?”

“AVALANCHE.”

Barret says it without missing a beat, forcing her eyes back up into his. “Isn’t that—?”

“Yeah,” he says, and the admission carries a certain weight, a significance that Tifa feels left out of. “We’ll be finishing their work. But it’ll be different this time, it won’t be… you know.”

“Why AVALANCHE, though?”

Barret frowns, thinking carefully on his words. “My hometown had a reactor. It doesn’t now, thanks to them. Thought it might be a good homage to the good they did for the planet, a place we can start. But we ain’t goin’ down the same way.”

“Promise me.”

There’s a long pause, quiet save for the drip of the leaky tap. Tifa throws her rag on the counter, done with upkeep for the night, and waits for Barret’s answer.

“I promise.”

“Then,” she hesitates for barely a second, “I’m in too. What Shin-Ra’s doing isn’t good for anyone, and these slums? The wastelands? They’re all proof of it.”

“Don’t forget the sky. S’posed to be blue, but it’s all green with mako pollution,” Barret adds. “We’re doing this for the planet.”

“For the planet,” Tifa repeats softly. “Yeah.”

**Author's Note:**

> I just imagine Barret wanting to keep Marlene safe from all the bad in the world, to keep her believing in fairytales and magic and true love's kiss (even if he hates that one), and wanting to make the world a better place for her.
> 
> Or at least, that's what he says to avoid saying revenge.


End file.
